After the Quake, Fingers Point at Beijing

An estimated 10,000 children died in the earthquake in Sichuan province in China, and aftershocks are still echoing through the region. In one school with 900 children near the epicenter, only 13 students emerged alive. Parents have become angry at the shoddy construction used in China’s school and in the government’s reaction in general. And now rivers that have been dammed by debris from the quake and turned into growing lakes threaten many more people.

The Burmese government and their media is softening their stance toward allowing aid donors into affected areas. And it only took a month.

And two piece from the Times: Jill Bolte Taylor, the neuroscientist who had a stroke and documented it, now has a book coming out. Plus mindfulness as therapy:

The patient sat with his eyes closed, submerged in the rhythm of his own breathing, and after a while noticed that he was thinking about his troubled relationship with his father.

“I was able to be there, present for the pain,” he said, when the meditation session ended. “To just let it be what it was, without thinking it through.”

The therapist nodded.

“Acceptance is what it was,” he continued. “Just letting it be. Not trying to change anything.”